baseball lesson

This morning while Fox and I were outside pulling weeds in the warm spring sunshine, Lee invited us over for strawberries. Fox took off running towards Lee's house and I thought about his inability to resist strawberries, chocolate or any other treat, and decided that it was time to have the "strangers with candy" talk with him.

We sat down at Lee's table as he moved about his small kitchen adding dashes and splashes from various bottles into a mixing bowl. He placed the bowl of shiny berries directly under my nose and listed the ingredients as he squeezed pancake syrup; "bout a quarter cup uh that cran grape juice, uh couple uh squirts uh 'at lime cocktail mix, three or four uh tablespoons uh sugar, an dis maple toppin'.

He set the syrup down and franticly spun around, bumping the table as he violently swung open the refrigerator door, and emerged with a container of berry flavored cream cheese. "Now dis is at bagel cream 'cept it's got berries in it an at's why it's purple" Lee scooped three ice cream sized scoops on top of the berries instructing me that "they jus needs a tablespoon er two to coat 'em", then proceeded to stir the lumps around and around through the sticky berries. He put three saucers down and three berries on each saucer and gave Fox and I the go ahead look before he ate his using a knife as a spear. They were delicious and Fox quickly became sugar wild.

Lee has a bumper pool game in the corner of his living room and Fox began removing the balls from the shelf and rolling them across the floor. We rolled them back forth for a while before Lee said "HEY Fox come out here an try dis baseball game I made"
The game consisted of an electrical cable wrapped around a branch of a tree with a wiffle ball and rope tied to it. He gave Fox the handle of a pool stick to use as a bat, and told him to hit the ball. Fox set the handle on the ground and started smacking the ball around and laughing hysterically, until the ball hit him in the chin. After trying to explain the game with no luck, Lee gave him a few lessons.

It was then that I decided to run and get my camera.

While in my house getting the camera I remembered that Fox had a bat, so I got it out of his room and headed back to Lee's.

Fox got tired of the baseball thing, and wanted to play with the pool balls again, so we went back inside and rolled those around a little bit more.

Then Fox took a few pictures:

spring in my yard

My yard is so nice in the spring time.



We have really old bulbs that the original owners planted, and they still provide a dazzling display when the weather warms.





Nothing is more satisfying than working in the garden!

Lee hadn't exited his house in four days when I saw him draw back the hot air balloon-printed curtain and peek out his front door at Fox and I, quickly releasing it when he saw my glance. Three minutes later he stepped onto his front landing wearing an unbuttoned shirt and a knit toboggan. The shirt seemed like a tiny rag hanging from his shoulders, gathering under his arms framing his protuberant belly.

A week ago his hot water heater stopped working and he came over to my house to take a "whores bath", which we called a "bird bath" in my house, but when you think about the key body parts in the process, "whores bath" is a more apt title. After he had rinsed his hair and put his clothes back on, Lee opened the door while he shaved and chatted. He hadn't put his belt back on yet, and I was shocked to see the impossible angle his belly created where it returned to his hip. The bottom of his overhanging belly was parallel with the floor, and created a sharp, right angle with his hip bone. Don't worry. I didn't stare. One glance and I will never forget the sight. Even when I was carrying a nine and a half pound baby Fox in my belly it wasn't that big. Why do some men have such off the chain bellies?

Lee scratched and stretched, then disappeared back into his house, reemerging with a steaming cup of coffee and a "rolly", which is a hand rolled cigarette. He slowly approached Fox and I, stopping here and there to look around at the wind blowing the trees. He had buttoned his shirt and I could tell that that particular shirt was soon becoming an openly wearable only type; the buttons were all mismatched colors at the midsection and they seemed to be under a great deal of strain.

I was pushing Fox on his swing and he was screaming so he didn't hear Lee approach. I noticed that Lee had something shoved in his back pocket that was making him walk funny.

"So do yall have one uh them VHS players or what?", Lee barked as if he had already asked me twenty times before. He pulled the item out of his pocket and it was a cover less VHS tape entitled "Winterland Scooby Doo" I told him that we did, and he went on to explain that he had bought that tape from "a guy who was hurtin with his rent" for Fox.

"It's pretty cool. I done watched it. Thares a few stories on 'at one tape an one's a Christmas-type story, an the rest are, well I wont give it away. It's CLEAN anyway"
Well that was a relief! I was wondering if he meant that it was a physically clean tape and relatively germ-free, or if he was referring to the content of the movie.

Fox had realized Lee was amidst and had began yelling Lee's name over and over. Lee pushed him for a while, then proclaimed, "I sware I could'uh cut'chore hair straighter with uh pan-knife than what 'at woman did! An how much you paid'er?"

I told him that we had traded goods for services, and he seemed satisfied. After I got my hair cut he started calling me by a different name. Something that sounded like "Asian-ninine". I had no idea what he was saying, and he was drunk. After realizing that he was doing it on purpose, not of disorientation I finally asked him why.

"You look like 'at spy Agent 99! You know! From 'at ol spy movie Get Smart!?" I lied and told him that I knew what he was talking about, relieved that he wasn't being derogatory towards Asian people.

Lee asked us what we were going to do today, and I said that since we were both under the weather that we would likely stick around the house and enjoy the warm temperatures. He said "em doctors say y'need at least fifteen minits'uh sunshine per day or you'll get all..." Lee was making the universal sign for crazy; winding his finger around and around right beside his head, and I told him that I believed it whole-heartedly.

sicko

I'm sick. I'm ill. I'm spent. I'm all blah.

This is week 2 of my newest 2009 sickness and I'm fixin to loose it. Having the flu over Christmas and New Years should safeguard you from having it through out the entire next year, but I haven't so fortunate.
Last weekend the roof of my mouth started hurting and since I haven't been to the dentist in over a decade, I figured that I had finally gotten a cavity which would probably require a root canal or some crap. The pain continued, then my throat started stinging when I swallowed. Meanwhile Fox had started coughing and sneezing quantities of clear, watery mucus all over, so I thought he was having allergies, and I needed to make a dentist appointment.
The next day I woke up with the worst headache I have ever had, and my nose was entirely blocked. Fox was coughing, sneezing and acting like he was possessed by evil spirits, he was misbehaving so. Muscle pain, and the discomfort of trying to blow my nose and constant coughing kept me from getting comfortable. The sinus pressure and blockage took away my senses of smell, hearing, and taste, and made all of my teeth hurt. When I walked across the room my footsteps were silent, and I stopped eating. The sensations are similar to the effects of getting hit really hard upside the head. Poor Fox fell asleep on the couch and woke disoriented, confused by his sore body and the setting sun.

That was last week, and we haven't improved much since then. Taking Ny-Qul and sleeping is the only reliable relief of a sickness such as this. Fox seems to feel good in the bath tub so he has been getting at least one bath each day. How torturous for a small child to be so sick without an adequate vocabulary to properly complain. All he can formulate is; "Foxy sick! Got mucus up'dere"

And he can't blow his nose yet! Sometimes he will accidentally blow it when no one is prepared with a handkerchief, but never on command. There will be so much goo in his nose that it cascades out and onto his upper lip while he, evidently, has no sensation of it. I feel obligated to stand behind him and wipe his nose every three to five minutes, and he writhes and whines whenever I do as if I were armed with a weapon. Needless to say the two of us are a sorry sight.
Hopefully we will improve with the weather. We have been going outside every day but our excursions haven't lasted long in the freezing air. Fox's water table was frozen solid this morning with a bunch of toys trapped under the surface. Fox peered at the toys, then looked at me with frustrated disappointment, as if it were my fault. We decided to swing instead which thrilled Fox, but when I got him out of the swing his face was lined with channels of snot all the way back to his ears, and I felt like a bad mom. We came inside and had leftover vegetable soup and read books.